Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. I.djvu/54

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there on the stage, bowing before the public, his burning glances rivetted on mine.

"I lay for some time in my bed, drowsily contemplating that sweet vision, so vague and indefinite, trying to recall his features which had got mixed up with those of the several statues of Antinöus which I had seen.

"Analyzing my feelings, I was now conscious that a new sensation had come over me—a vague feeling of uneasiness and unrest. There was an emptiness in me, still I could not understand if the void was in my heart or in my head. I had lost nothing and yet I felt lonely, forlorn, nay almost bereaved. I tried to fathom my morbid state, and all I could find out was that my feelings were akin to those of being home-sick or mother-sick, with this simple difference, that the exile knows what his cravings are, but I did not. It was something indefinite like the Sehnsucht of which the Germans speak so much, and which they really feel so little.

"The image of Teleny haunted me, the name of Réné was ever on my lips. I kept repeating it over and over for dozens of times. What a